It is ironic that the centenarians who came to break stereotypes and champion diversity are also the ones who are surrendering to the most canonical beauty dictates.
Generation Z—born between 1996 and 2010—has grown up in an environment in which social networks are an axiomatic part of their universe.
Channels that opened communication to narratives that escaped the norm, but that paradoxically have ended up imposing new aesthetic ideals.
The result is a generation that undergoes surgeries or interventions sooner than its predecessors and faces that reflect a maturity that does not yet exist.
“Why do Gen Zers age worse than millennials?”
It is a recurring premise in thousands of TikTok videos in which users analyze faces like Rihanna (35 years old) or Andrew Garfield (40), who seem younger than very famous
zetas
like Kylie Jenner (26 years old) or Millie Bobby Brown (just turned 20).
Those of the latter are the aspirational faces that their contemporaries consume daily.
The reports that attempt to x-ray them agree that they resume habits that their elders left behind.
According to a study by the Spanish Association against Cancer (AECC), 57% believe that vaping is fashionable and one in four thinks that it is exaggerated when talking about the risks of smoking.
They also do not see danger in solar radiation: according to the latest Heliocare Observatory, published annually by the Spanish laboratory Cantabria Labs, only 32% of young people use photoprotection throughout the year (compared to 60% of the general population).
Centennials
have begun to colonize the aisles of large perfume stores, buying anti-aging creams and signing up for expensive beauty routines, but they seem to forget the rest of the elements that influence aging, the exposome
.
This term coined by Christopher P. Wild refers to the factors that impact health and aging, beyond genetics.
Solar radiation, tobacco, pollution, diet, stress, lack of sleep or climate are pieces that, combined, determine around 70-80% of the way a person will age.
“External factors that harm the health and appearance of the skin do so from three fronts,” dermatologist Pedro Jaén points out in his book
A skin for life
, “first, they deteriorate the skin barrier (the hydrolipidic mantle that covers and protects the dermis), promoting the loss of moisture that leads to dehydration of the skin;
Secondly, they help the production of free radicals, and thirdly, they hinder cell renewal because they degrade and reduce the production of collagen and elastin.”
Korean rapper Choi Yeon-jun (Yeonjun from Tomorrow x Together), 24.Stephane Cardinale (Corbis / Get
Addison Rae (23 years old), social media star in the United States.Frazer Harrison (Getty Images)
At only 22 years old, Billie Eilish triumphs worldwide with her music.Michael Tran (Afp / Getty Images
Therapist Yvette Pons, an expert in aesthetic morphophysiology, has been analyzing faces for more than 30 years.
“I think that very young people are beginning to take care of themselves in an invasive way and are losing the physiognomy that would correspond to their age.
They end up having older faces.
They lose sweetness and show more hardened aspects.
I pay attention to when they gesture in consultation and I see that they have more aggressive movements that may have to do with stress.
They have constricted eyebrows or highly developed plateau muscles.
They come with a lot of insecurity, lack of enthusiasm, I think that an emotional disorder is common.
“They seem secure, but they are dependent.”
Their patients are increasingly smaller, in terms of female: 72% of consumers of aesthetic medicine treatments and 85% of aesthetic surgery patients are women, according to the medical societies of both specialties.
“From the age of 15 or 16 they begin to come alone, sometimes with their savings,” Pons continues, “they come asking for advice on fillers or neuromodulators [the popular Botox] because they are getting a wrinkle that I don't see.
“They look at each other more than ever and are more concerned about aging.”
Perhaps because, in a world that they perceive without certainty, they feel that aesthetic perfection is something they can control.
British singer and dancer Maddie Ziegler is only 21 years old.Corey Nickols (Getty Images)
Millie Bobby Brown, who just turned 20 this month, has her own cosmetic company.Dimitrios Kambouris (Getty Image
“The cult of youth, the desire to fix the smooth appearance of the skin, is related to the attempt to stop what is human that is revealed with the passage of time: the skin cannot be confused with an artificial matter, which is what that look like the bright, high Botox cheekbones and foreheads of certain actresses,” Mona Chollet wrote in
Fatal Beauty
in 2012. Concern about aging is not new, but it is coming sooner each time.
Today the body becomes just another gadget on which to work to improve performance.
The turning point, according to all the doctors consulted, was the pandemic from which the demand for medical-aesthetic treatments and surgeries increased exponentially.
Especially injectables such as hyaluronic acid fillers or neuromodulators.
According to the latest available study from the Spanish Society of Aesthetic Medicine (SEME), which collects data from 2021, the first access to aesthetic medicine has gone from 35 to 20 years old.
And, according to data from the Spanish Society of Plastic, Reconstructive and Aesthetic Surgery (SECPRE) for the same period, injectable processes grew by 22.8% compared to the previous year.
The reasons?
Offer at a more affordable price, less invasive applications and a standardization of procedures thanks to social networks.
A channel that has brought younger people closer to injectables, but also to surgeries.
“Many people come to us with a photograph and say: 'I would like to look like that person,' reveals the president of the Spanish Association of Plastic Aesthetic Surgery (AECEP), Dr. Nicolás Maestro Sarrión, “we have to be cautious and start by seeing whether those faces are real or not, choosing the appropriate technique for each patient and understanding that there are limitations.”
Caution must be even greater when dealing with young people: “They have more delicate skin and work is done progressively.
We can't always do what they demand.
“They must allow themselves to be advised.”
Of the almost 627,000 aesthetic medicine facial treatments that were performed in 2021, according to SEME, 42% corresponded to botulinum toxin injections and 32% to hyaluronic acid fillers.
Among the former, the preventive injection that paralyzes a muscle so that it does not form a wrinkle has become popular, even before it appears.
“Treatments have to be done when there is a problem, not before,” advises Dr. Mari Paz Artigues, a surgeon member of the AECEP, who is not in favor of starting as prevention.
“If you have muscles it is to tighten or contract and if you constantly loosen or soften them for years, eventually that will have an effect on the skin that remains on top.
You have to think together: skin, muscle and fat,” says Dr. Artigues, who recommends spacing out punctures.
Emily Blunt (40 years old).
The networks joke that she has the same nose as Portman. Jeff Kravitz (FilmMagic / Getty
Natalie Portman, 42.Marc Piasecki (Getty Images)
Andrew Garfield is 40 years old, but he could also be in his twenties.Marc Piasecki (WireImage / Getty
In the case of resorbable hyaluronic acid fillers, the most popular among centenarians is the one used to enlarge lips.
“Nothing happens with a little filler, the problem lies when they are too repetitive or with exaggerated volumes;
When the effect of the filler disappears, the skin has become very distended and, either you fill it again, or it will be difficult to recover," says Maestro Sarrión, who emphasizes the importance of good advice and going to specialists: "We receive patients referred from centers unauthorized ones with whom we have to go to the operating room.
If a filler is placed incorrectly, it can cause embolization in the blood, infections or cysts that must be removed.”
More and more centers offer a global approach, including the emotional dimension, before addressing any intervention.
This is the case of the eponymous clinic of Dr. Luis Martínez Quindós in León: “Many people arrive with dysmorphia and you have to be careful, make an assessment to see if there is a psychologically based problem.
I try to be cautious and add less filling than what they ask me for, because, depending on how it is placed, it can leave a negative aesthetic mark.”
It is essential that the professional be the one who sets the limit, because the demand among the youngest is clear: “Put me on, put me on, put me on.”
Ryan Gosling, 43, is another actor whose time passes by.
Paolo Diletto (IPA / Sipa Usa /
Barbadian singer Rihanna, 35.Stephane Cardinale (Corbis / Get